Koi eating my new water lilly!

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Hey all! It's been a while since I posted. My H (eric_h_e) has been posting more than I. However, plants aren't his department. I bought a new blue-blooming water lilly. It was sprouted with about three leaves. Once home I potted it in a thin layer heavy clay with thin shale chards over it to keep it in he pot and weigh the whole thing down. Now my koi are eating the leaves. It only has one left now! I cut the bottom out of a 1 gallon pot and tied it to the planter so it floats at the water level around the leaves to at least give this thing a chance to get established. So far so good it seems to be greeting a reprieve. This is the only water lilly they get after, they don't bother the other two, they don't eat my water clover, watercress, parrot's feather, & a couple other I can't remember the name of..go figure. I feed them every day at the same time and I stand there and feed them till they don't come back for more. (Yes, I scoop out any left.) Any other thots?
 
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I only had shubunkins and comets in my old pond, and they left me plants alone. I've noticed since getting a bigger pond and adding koi that they love eating my hyacinth... In fact, I'm not sure it's going to make it! At this rate though, I won't have to throw out half the plants each week once they get going!

I haven't put my lilies into my new pond with the koi yet. I think I remember reading somewhere that the koi only eat the young small leaves, so if you elevate the pot so that it's only an inch or two under water, the koi can't get to the young leaves. I don't know though, I've obviously never tried this.
 
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Certain nurseries butcher tropical waterlilies they distribute to resellers. Chop all the roots close to the plant, absolutely awful.

If you were unlucky enough to get such a plant its very touch and go if the plant survives at all

Enclosing the plant within a big tub, keeping fish well away might give a struggling tropical waterlily a chance to recover

Regards, andy
http://swglist.wordpress.com/
http://www.pinterest.com/adavisus/pondering/
 
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we too have the koi eating as it turns out, the younger leaves of the new lily that we are trying to grow out...
they wont bother the existing established lily.
 
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So far so good on the suspended pot around my water lilly plant. It now has three whole leaves on it! It is amazing the difference just a few days of being left alone will make! I will put it in the shallower end of my pond if this doesn't continue to be effective. I dunno why I didn't think of that, thank you!
 

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